- Author
- Rogers, F. E. | Ohlemiller, T. J.
- Title
- Smolder Characteristics of Flexible Polyurethane Foams.
- Coporate
- Princeton Univ., NJ
- Journal
- Journal of Fire and Flammability, Vol. 11, No. 1, 32-44, January 1980
- Sponsor
- National Institute of Standards and Technology, Gaithersburg, MD
- Contract
- NBS-GRANT-4-9026
- Keywords
- polyurethane foams | flexible foams | smoldering | fire statistics | thermal analysis
- Abstract
- Flexible polyurethane foams that are char formers are capable of smoldering combustion. The smoldering process is an oxygen-limited, heterogeneous oxidation process that slowly transforms the foam to a brittle, black replica of itself; for the foam examined here, the resultant char has a high surface area and a complex nature as implied by its elemental make-up. Elemental analyses of sections of the solid material from an extinguished smolder wave suggest that the overall transformation of the polyurethane by the smolder wave progresses in two overall stages. In the first, smolder inhibiting tar formation via pyrolysis (non-oxidative) is a significant competitor with oxidative char formation, in the second stage, strongly exothermic char oxidation dominates. The kinetics and thermochemistry of this foam-char transformation have been determined with the aid of thermal analysis.